Hat Day, and More

Julia got to go off to school sporting her brand new (thanks to Mommy!) pink cowgirl hat, because today's alphabet theme was H(at) Day!:

While we sat in the Kindergarten Waiting Area, having arrived about ten minutes early for afternoon kindergarten, Madeleine had the delight of seeing all of the other hats that Julia's classmates had worn to school.  But her excitement became even greater when she glanced up at the new decoration hanging next to the school banner.

MADELEINE: Look, Mama!  It's a WITCH!

It wasn't a witch, actually.  It was, in fact, supposed to be Anne Frank:

ME: Oh, that's not a witch, honey.
MADELEINE: Then who IS it?
ME: It's Anne Frank.
MADELEINE: Is she a WITCH?
ME: Uh, no.  She's not a witch.  She's someone really important in history.  She wrote something really important that a lot of people still read today.
MADELEINE: But Mama.  Does she have NO head?

This whole (very LOUD) discussion brought me uncomfortably close to the good old days when Julia informed me that the proper term of "losers" was African Americans.  I didn't even want to think about what Julia might have said had she seen the headless Anne Frank when she was 3.5.

At any rate, Hat Day was a big success, although Julia opted to walk home hat-less (but NOT headless) in the near 100-degree weather.  Lucky for her, she had swim lessons after school, and even though the pool at the Y is indoors, she enjoyed the chance to cool off in the water.  When we got home from school, the girls and I set about the long and involved task of frosting all the cross-shaped cookies I had baked for Sunday's PTO-sponsored church coffee hour.  The process came to a temporary halt when I realized that Julia, who is sick with a cold, was literally licking her frosting spoon after each dip into the cup of icing.  Once I returned with some freshly made, germ-free icing, we were able to start anew, with me icing about 75% of the cookies in the time it took Julia to do a handful and Madeleine to do a mere three because she was too busy eating all the frosting drippings off of her plate and exclaiming, "Mmmmmm!  Sooooo, soooooo GOOD for my TUMMY!"

Our finished cookies.  See if you can guess which plate was Madeleine's.

After dinner this evening, the girls got an EXTRA-SPECIAL treat, as the new frozen yogurt shop in town was hosting a fund-raiser for Julia's elementary school.  20% of all proceeds would go to the school PTC, and students were all encouraged to attend with their families and eat froyo on the town green.  Julia needed to exchange her cowboy hat and tank top for her school tee-shirt, and Madeleine opted to put on a tiara, because, well, why not??

The black flip-flops beside Julia on the bench were casualties of our walk to the frozen yogurt shop.  They have been falling apart for days, and I honestly don't know what possessed Julia to try and wear them on our mile+ walk tonight, but we had only made it about a quarter of the way there when the flip-flops broke.  Ethan tried to dash into the CVS to buy her a new pair, with Julia shouting, "Daddy!  Make sure you get ones JUST LIKE THESE!", but CVS was out of her size.  So, to resurrect a term from the good old days of Toddler Madeleine, Julia had to "borefoot" it the rest of the way to the yogurt shop.  I managed to find a pair in her size at the nearby Walgreens while Ethan ordered the girls their froyo, but, alas, there were no plain black flip-flops to be found.  I instead had to settle on the complete opposite and purchase wildly colorful and decorative flip-flops:

Turns out that, despite Julia's insistence on the EXACT SAME flip-flops, these new ones were even bigger of a hit.  "I just looove my new sandals," Julia sighed in contentment on the walk home.  "You know why I especially like these better than my other ones?  Because, I'm, like, in LOVE with peace signs!"

PHEW.  I nailed it.

Our walk home took significantly longer than the walk there, even though Julia was no longer borefooting, because Madeleine opted not to ride in the stroller, but instead to push it the whole way home:

Then, as if *that* didn't delay us enough, and as if Julia's peace sign flip flops on top of frozen yogurt for dessert didn't already make it the PERFECT night, we spotted this guy out in front of a neighbor's lawn:

So, naturally, we had to stop and stare at him for awhile, because, if you remember, Julia "really loves bunnys."  (Madeleine, always totally with the program, climbed into my lap as I was loading this picture on my computer and using my red-eye reduction, and asked me, "Mama?  Why does that bunny have RED EYES?  Is it because he's POOPING?")

Uh, yeah.  That's why.  Bingo!

At any rate, it is now nearly nine o' clock and the girls are just getting to bed, but it was totally worth the late night for the fun of a family outing on a summery night, treating them to a special dessert and peace-sign sandals and spending some extra time all together.  I know I'm going to curse my foolish sentimental thoughts when the kids wake at the crack of dawn and are tired crank-pots all day tomorrow, but for now, I'm living in the moment!